Physics Investigative Project (PIP | SPA7015U)

Year: 4 | Semester: A/B | Level: 7 | Credits: 30

Course organiser: Dr Craig Agnor | Course deputy:

Synopsis:

(Available only to 4th year MSci students) A student will develop design, experimental, computational or analytical skills through the independent study of a problem in physics. S/he will learn to write a scientific report summarising results of an independent investigation and placing them in a physics context. The project will run through both semesters and will involve an interim report at the end of semester 1 as well as a final report at the end of semester 2.

Aims:

The aim of the investigative project is to give the student the opportunity to work independently on a chosen project towards specified goals. These goals will vary from project to project and may include: writing software to achieve a specified computational task, e.g., simulation of a physical process; carrying out a series of measurements to establish or disprove a working hypothesis; building a piece of equipment, e.g., to interface an experiment to a PC; analytical mathematical analysis applied to the study of a theoretical problem.

Outcomes:

At the end of the project the student will have gained experience in: carrying out a substantial piece of scientific research independently; conducting literature surveys and internet searches to obtain specialist information about his/her project; writing a substantial scientific report describing the research carried out, in producing this report the student will use word processing and graphical software packages such as WORD and EXCEL